World Wildlife Day 2019 theme is ‘Life below Water: for People and Planet’. This theme aligns with UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG)14 – Life Below Water. This significantly highlights the importance of marine species to our environment and the steps we must take to conserve the marine ecosystem.

We are living in a plastic planet. Plastic pollution issues are growing exponentially every year as we are producing more than 300 million tons of plastic. Most of the plastics used are single-use which ends up in our oceans. This issue can be solved by educating and engaging everyone in a conversation to rethink plastic. 

I want to encourage the use of paper bags and cloth/jute bags in my community and to discard the use of plastics bags. I want to spread the message that “Plastic is not our body’s best friend”. I want to convince people to stop using single-use plastic bottles, cups, bags and straws and to switch to filtered tap water.

More and more cosmetics contain microbeads. Tiny particles of plastic have been added to thousands of personal care cosmetic products (toothpaste, make-up, facial soaps etc.…).These microplastics are a hazard to our environment. These get washed down into our oceans and enter our food chain. Fish ingest microplastics and then we humans also end up eating it.

As much as 40% of the world’s oceans are heavily affected by the human activities. We as global citizens needs to play an important role by cleaning the seas and oceans and protecting the marine life.

Let’s take a pledge to reduce single-use plastics and put an end to plastic pollution, thereby saving our marine ecosystem.